Woman assaulted in another case of moral policing in Meghalaya

GUWAHATI, APR 16,
The police in Meghalaya’s West Garo Hills district have arrested a man for assaulting a woman as punishment for her alleged relationship with a person from a different community.
The arrest on Saturday was made on the basis of a video that shows a group of men kicking and punching the woman, who belongs to the Garo tribe, at a picnic spot near Chibinang village.
“We have not been able to locate the victim, who did not lodge any complaint. We took suo motu cognisance of the incident and caught one of the two men seen in the video assaulting the woman,” MGR Kumar, superintendent of police of West Garo Hills district, said.
“This appears to be a case of moral policing,” he added.
This is the second such case reported within a week since April 8, when the police in Assam’s Goalpara district arrested 12 men for assaulting a Garo tribal woman at Paikan on the Assam-Meghalaya border. The woman had been “taught a lesson” for riding pillion on a Muslim man’s motorcycle.
In both cases, about 80 km apart, the assailants had filmed the assault on the women and uploaded the video on social media.
Crimes against women since Sunday evening were reported from Assam too. The police in Charaideo district caught a man for allegedly attempting to rape a woman in Lukurakhon village.
The villagers had caught the man, identified as Azizur Haque from Dhubri district, and handed him over to the police. “We are searching for another man the villagers said had tried to violate the modesty of the woman,” a Charaideo district police officer said.
Early Monday morning, a woman — partially clad and bleeding — was found lying near Gorchuk police station in Guwahati. The police sent her to the Guwahati Medical College Hospital for treatment.
“It is too early to say if the woman was raped. We found she had been estranged from her husband and was living with her son,” Banwarilal Meena, deputy commissioner of police, said.